Chris Pete

So far, so good in my opinion. It’s a refreshingly fun and self-aware show, and it’s clear that this season was written by the same talent that made the first 2 seasons of The Boys so good (and this project probably kept them away from Season 3, which is likely why it wasn’t quite as high of quality) Gen V makes for a fun, messed up version of The Breakfast Club in many ways, showing us just enough about the various characters so that we can form our opinions of them based on the cliches that we’ve seen a million times before…. Then subverting them unexpectedly when the script calls us out on those assumptions, or unexpectedly pivots in a new direction, and it’s wonderful. The series heavily focuses on the idea that there are these ugly sides of superheroes and super powers— people with powers that are actively disconcerting and unattractive to many (IE blood-based powers), and powers that are more conventionally attractive and marketable. It continues the “keep laughing or you just might cry” satire of a corporate world that’s obsessed with image and marketability at the expense of human lives and suffering, and that satire somehow still feels fresh and like something I haven’t already seen a dozen times, which is impressive because, well, I’ve watched 3 seasons of The Boys that features these ideas prominently. It elevates ideas that I’m admittedly unfamiliar and somewhat uncomfortable with to more mainstream points— we see a character who is (damn near literally) gender fluid, characters with different economic and social backgrounds, polyamorous relationships, and that sort of Starship Troopers-esque quality of characters who live in a horrifying world, then drink the kool aid rather than rebel against it. But my best bit of praise is— this doesn’t fall into the same traps we’ve seen time and again of “corporate liberalism.” I don’t say that to mean “liberalism is bad,” but to call out lazy (generally streaming) content that has taken the ideas of “hey, institutional sexism and racism still exist and affect people” and boiled it down to “we should make sure that all of the white men in our show or movie are exclusively represented as preening man-children who got where they are because of preferential treatment, and that’s the all the analysis that sexism or racism deserve!” Instead, there are *characters*. We see Golden Boy and we think “wow, real creative— they just made Young Homelander. Real freaking original,” only to have some interesting twists and characterization that I don’t wish to spoil beyond saying “he isn’t just Young Homelander.” I imagine that this show will piss off the far right, just like The Boys did, and browsing some of the lower ranking reviews, that seems to be the case. So I guess I’ll just wrap up my review with this: statistically speaking, I doubt that anyone who voted for Donald Trump will enjoy this show.